This episode features two teachers with experience in high-poverty urban schools. We’ll find out why John Owens, the author of Confessions of a Bad Teacher, lasted less than a year when he left his publishing job to teach in the Bronx. Alex Caputo-Pearl is a 20-year veteran social studies teacher in South Los Angeles, and a member of the inaugural 1990 class of Teach for America. He was recently forced to transfer schools after he led a controversial effort to rewrite the curriculum at Crenshaw High School.

Podcast production by Sally Herships.

Dana Goldstein is the author of The Teacher Wars. She contributes to Slate, the New Republic, the Marshall Project, and other publications.